The Weakest Link
The show was ﬁrst broadcast in the United Kingdom in 2000 and it ran until 2012. Journalist and television presenter Anne Robinson (famous for her assertive views) hosted the show for the entirety of its run. The format of the game show consisted of a team of contestants who all had to answer general knowledge questions in turn. Unlike many other game shows, this was a team effort, so points were not won individually but they were won as a team total. The object of each round was to answer consecutively correct answers, therefore creating a chain of which the value of money increased as the chain of correct answers got longer. The money accrued with each correct answer, but if a contestant got an answer wrong and therefore broke the chain, the amount won to that point went straight back to zero. The idea therefore was for contestants to say ‘bank’ at various points in a sequence of questions as long as it was said just before a question asked. Once this was said, the money won to that point was then safe, and the balance returned to zero, however, every time a contestant said ‘bank’. Also, money not banked before the clock ran out was also lost. It was perhaps surprising how many times one found themselves" screaming ‘bank’ at the television screen when for some unfathomable reason the clock would be about to get to zero and the team playing seemed totally unaware of the fact that they were about to lose every penny that they had just built up! At the end of each round the contestants voted for who should be eliminated from the game. They all wrote who they voted for and then the person with the most votes would be the weakest link and sent packing. Arguably the most remembered and still widely used phrases from the game show, which has certainly crept into modern culture, was the famous Anne Robinson line, ‘You are the weakest link, goodbye’. Robinson was also renowned for being pretty gruelling and sarcastic to contestants during the show but particularly once they had been voted as the weakest link. Obviously, as more contestants got voted off the shorter the rounds became. The following round was also always started with the person who had been voted as the strongest link in the previous round. The ﬁnal two rounds consisted of the ﬁnal two contestants ﬁrst working together in the same way as the earlier rounds, except this time the money banked at the end was doubled or tripled. The ﬁnal was then a head-to-head where the two players had to each answer ﬁve questions. Whoever answered the most correctly won that day’s show outright. In the event of a tie the game ﬁnished with Sudden Death. The Weakest Link format has been successfully licensed all over the world and many countries have their own version. The original British version of the game show is also still broadcast around the World on the BBC Entertainment channel. Category:BBC shows Category:Single contestants